Hello.
I’m Aloka.
I’m a mom of two boys (Born October 2012 and April 2015), a Certified Lactation Educator, and a nutrition enthusiast.
I have been eating a diet based on the Primal / Paleo / Evolutionary lifestyle (or my own version of it), which consists predominantly of real food since April 2010. I’ve also been working out following the evolutionary principles ever since. (If this is the first time you’ve heard about the evolutionary lifestyle, start here).
I used to have migraines, PCOS, irregular periods, low energy, not to mention a lot of excess weight before I embraced this lifestyle. Read here for more on my story. Here is where I am with the Primal lifestyle after 4 years.
Ever since going primal I lost tons of weight and gained lean muscle. Physical fitness also played a role. You see when you workout -primal style it takes a lot less time, for a lot more results. No more running for hours and hours, but a few short bursts of intense activity and lots of pleasurable slow walks! You don’t need a gym membership, you don’t need to have a lot of time, and you don’t even need that much space. Conversely you can spend lot less time than you normally do in a gym.
When I got pregnant with N in Jan 2012, I had to put an end to boot camp and sprinting. Instead I did a lot of walking and yoga (hand stands and head stands included), some pushups and squats, and continued a highly active lifestyle which consisted of climbing steps at every given opportunity, walking everywhere I wanted to go, and get up and go till the very last day. Once I delivered I was back to boot camp and yoga in 2 and a half months and back to my former self in no time.
I ate real food mostly (with a few cheats). No grains, and no sugar through out my pregnancy. I didn’t gain weight (I was 2 pounds less once I delivered in October than I was in Jan), no swelling or water retention either, and had a lovely pregnancy.
Now that my kids are here I plan to raise him as primal as possible as long as I have control over what they eat.
I live in Mumbai, India. When you read primal / paleo blogs, you read about grass fed beef, lush green landscapes where people can take off and do sprints, coconut butter to snack on, alternatives to grain, and consciousness towards good ingredients creeping in. In India, there is no concept of grains being the bad guy, and low-fat is still the good guy.
It’s also hard to avoid constant string of advise like… don’t breastfeed for more than a year, don’t hold him too much, don’t feed him this, and feed him that, don’t let him put grass in his mouth.
I started this blog to inspire other Indian parents to follow your instincts to provide yourself and your family the best possible health and happiness. I truly believe great health begins in the womb and even before, and I plan to give my kid(s) the very best beginning!
If you live in Mumbai, I’m you’re local, primal mamma scouting out local resources, and ensuring my baby eats real food.
This blog aims to inspire those who are looking for a lifestyle change and those who want to ditch conventional wisdom in favour of a more intuitive and natural lifestyle.
I hope you find my explorations interesting, entertaining, and informative!
Do write to me in the comments or mail me at aloka@wholesomemamma.in
Hi Aloka,
A wonderful blog. I too am a nutrition enthusiast and a medical writer originally from India at the moment based in Australia. I have always been wanting to share the knowledge to my fellow Indians about nutritional medicine and grains been bad and it is so hard. You have done a great job in getting this blog up and running with wonderful recipes for the paleo diet in the indian context!
Niru
Hi Niru, thanks so much for the kind words. It’s pretty exciting because there are a few people slowly taking interest which is great. It’s definitely a hard message to get across because grains being good for is is such a hardwired belief.
Thanks for dropping by.
Hey Aloka, i accidentally came across your blog through FMC… really loved reading some of your posts 🙂 i’m a first time mum too…my boy is 10 months old…baby boys undoubtedly are the cutest! i have also recently started blogging about my adventures in parenting ;)…though its quite naive yet – http://www.mummadiaries.com
i look forward to interacting with you more often, and sharing stories of our naughty sonny boys! Here’s to a splendid motherhood! Cheers!!
Hi Amu,
nice to see you here. i will definitely have a look at your blog. and yes would love to swap stories with fellow first time mommies. it’s sure fun and super exciting. thanks for stopping by 🙂
Nice Blog. Searched the whole web for some Indian Paleo Recipes and came across your blog. Im not an expert on cooking or paleo. but hope get some nice indian paleo recipes.
BTW even im from Mumbai.
Regards,
Dinesh
Thanks dinesh! I am inspired to update indian recipes soon
I am not making a case against paleo here. Since you have gone the whole hog into the paleo, I am not even sure how positive you will be for what I have to say to you, and I have no idea if you would be okay to rethink/revisit your ideas even if you find some substance in what I have to point to you here. But all I can say to you is read my points with open, unbiased mindset.
1. I am vegan as I believe that anyone who can feel pain shouldn’t be put to pain. Keeping all the health arguments aside, our food also has a lot of blood, torture and sufferings involved. Whenever the word vegan is mentioned, one gets into a lot of doubts, find answers to all such common questions here(like don’t plants feel pain, what about environment etc.): http://hyderabadvegans.wordpress.com/why-vegan-detailed/
2. When it is not fair to hurt beings from other castes & races, how is it fair to enslave and torment beings from other species (that too merely for pleasure, not survival)? Why should justice and kindness be confined to humans when animals too can feel pain equally vividly? What we are doing to animals is much worse than the human slavery that was prevalent not so long ago. Imagine being given birth just to be enslaved & tortured for life! That’s exactly the story of the billions of farm animals that we birth (breed) every year! Thankfully, we successfully overcame centuries of conditioning to abolish human slavery, to choose ethics over history. It’s high time we take the next leap in our ethical evolution by overcoming the apathy conditioned into us, and eradicating animal slavery & oppression.
3. Paleo claims to be natural diet for caveman, but caveman only started eating meat after invention of fire and hunting tools! Humans used to be gatherers before that. Humans have long intenstines, more like herbivore. Most omnivores and carnivores have smaller intenstines, so that they can flush out decaying flesh easily. Besides this, our jaw movement, lack of sharp canines everything points that humans are more like herbivores. (did you know that hippopotemas and horses have even bigger canines than humans?) read more at http://michaelbluejay.com/veg/natural.html
4. I have been vegan for 3 years for ethical reasons. I have 11 month old son, that I birthed naturally through vegan pregnancy. I did not take any calcium supplements or protein supplements durign preganncy and gained 18 kgs weight. Lost all within 3 months. Had completely natural birth without any medical interventions and my kiddo hasn’t had any drop of medicine so far. You can read more about it here : http://sejswhirlpool.wordpress.com/2014/01/12/vegan-pregnancy-natural-birth/
5. There are a number of us who would love to take out our kids to an organic farm, for cherry picking etc. To show their kids where their food comes from. But how many parents do we know who would want to take their kids to a visit to slaughter houses, to show where their meat comes from?
6. A child before 2 years can not differenciate between food and non-food item. But a 2 year old child can very well do that. Keep an apple and a chicken in front of such a kid and I wonder if she would eat the chicken (alive!) and play with an apple!
7. As for milk, is there any species in nature drinking another species’ milk, or any milk at all post infancy? Each animal’s milk is tailor-made for her species by nature. Hence, hormonally and biologically, the milk of a cow/buffalo is totally unsuitable for humans. Besides, as a woman and a mother, I can’t imagine myself being raped and impregnated every year, enslaved all my life, my babies being killed and my milk being stolen for someone’s ice-cream and cheese! Had we been doing this to a human female, it would be a gross violation of human rights.
8. Even during the hunting days of humans, I doubt if we ever hunted chickens or pigs or goats. We raise them only coz they are docile animals, easy to breed and control!
9. So far health argument goes, there are plenty against animal foods, sheer lack of fibres, and presence of huge amount of saturated fats and cholesterol being one. After taking a course in nutrition from Cornell University, a lot of my myths have been broken about health related matters.
Again, like I said, this is not to challenge you on your beliefs, but just to put some humble points forward for you to ponder. Hope you will receive them with positive attitude and spare some time thinking about them.
Hi Sejal! thanks for your comments.
like me you too are very clear with your beliefs.
I agree to alot of your points. I too believe that alot of whats going on today with the way animals are being raised being enslaved and killed is inhuman and terrible. While that is true I don’t think being vegan is the answer.
Fire and eating meat has been around for 100’s and 1000’s of years. With respect to evolution we have certainly evolved to eat meat. I even think many of us have evolved to tolerate grains and milk though they have been around only for 10000 years or so.
I truly cannot imagine vegan being a diet with enough nutrients but looks like its worked for you and you and your baby are doing great! awesome for you!
With regards to health, the paleo diet has put to dust all the myth surrounding fiber is need in the form of whole grains, or cholesterol rises if you have saturated fat. We thrive on cholesterol and saturated fats and are blood work normally raises eyebrows (in a good way).
Your comments with regards to animals are true. I wish there was a way in which we could only eat animals raised in a humane way, but eat them we must. It’s called the food chain.
Anyway I will definitely have a look at the links that you have posted!
thanks for taking the time to write!
Hi
Great Blog!!! great stuff….
I have started an initiative of providing Health care Consultation to women right on the move. Consultation really helps you when you don’t have to queue up and give those loads of extra charges like Registration and development fees.
It’s an initiative also for women who are tied up with domestic chores to such an extent that cant visit a doc, we are just a call away…Online appointment, Payments and Phone and Web consultation…
Please visit http://www.drarchanabharti.com and if you can write in regards to this initiative will help..spreading a word specially if we can spread it as a good deed..to the under privileged…who work as maids and other petty jobs. So all those who employ them can spread a word…we help them for as cheap as 50 or may be even free if they have no earnings..
We are also extensively trying to spread a word with #breastcancerawareness and #askthequestion & #dontbeashamed tags to all the woman..
Cheers
Dr. Bharti
HI Aloka, I just reached your site from one of your articles from bumps and baby. I am from chennai and right now based in canada. I was searching for an Indian based paleo diet regime for a long time ( probably Google.CA didn’t give me your website ). Luckily I got through your site today.This is the website I was looking for!!! you have great ideas on parenting and self care from what I saw in your website so far. And Today is the New years day 2017.!! I can’t wait to get back to my paleo diet that I stopped in July 2015 due to less energy levels ( I mean I didn’t find time to cook paleo meals strictly having a baby , after I joined back to work post mat leave )
Could you please clarify me 2 questions here. It would help me to get back to paleo.
1) what kind of easy paleo snacks you would recommend for busy working moms, such that I can have the snacks to regain my energy leveld
2) what is your everyday diet and exercise regime?
Thank you and wishin you a wonderful new year 2017 !!!@
Hi Aloka,
Writing this message to enquire about publishing content on your website – http://www.wholesomemamma.in for one of our clients. Wanted to know if we can publish content related to pre-pregnancy, pregnancy, post pregnancy & baby care advice on your website. If yes, kindly share your rate card per blog & also any guidelines that needs to be followed.
In case of any queries, feel free to reach out to me on my number- 8655325223
Awaiting a positive response.